Presidential aspirant Amama Mbabazi has implicitly declared his resolve not to be inhibited by the vehicle he will ride on to the general election next year.

He said as much in a letter, which has been publicised, to his party chairman President Yoweri Museveni, only days before he made the long-awaited announcement that he would run for the presidency in 2016.

“I remain loyal to my party the National Resistance Movement. Yet my greatest devotion and allegiance is to my country Uganda and its people,” Mr Mbabazi said in the letter dated June 13.  

The former prime minister said that he was ready to challenge President Museveni on an NRM ticket, but if need be, he would seek the presidency using another vehicle.

That other vehicle is already up and running – the Democratic Alliance (TDA) — under which Museveni’s opponents want to front a joint candidate. Many think that Mbabazi has a good chance of scooping the joint ticket.

For well over a year, Mbabazi, who before becoming prime minister in 2011 was widely referred to as “super minister” when he held the defence and later security dockets, had dilly-dallied about whether he would stand against Museveni in next year’s election.

The declaration about his candidature, made in a five-minute video in the early hours of Monday June 15, has, therefore, set Uganda abuzz.

Yet despite being at the centre of media attention, Mbabazi has remained his old reclusive self, limiting his appearance in the public domain to an unplanned encounter with pressmen that lasted just over a minute outside his residence in the upscale Kampala neighbourhood of Kololo, on the day he made the announcement.

His spokespeople said he was out of the country on Thursday when we tried to contact him for a comment. 

After the video declaration, which dominated much of the Monday and Tuesday buzz, the contents of the letter in which Mbabazi informed his party chairman of his intention to challenge him, took over, dominating the social media space on Wednesday and Thursday.

There then emerged another document, in which Mbabazi informed the National Electoral Commission of his intention to run for the presidency and plans to hold consultative meetings around the country.

That very evening, President Museveni sent out an 18-minute video reacting to the declaration made by his former prime minister and confidant. Then on Tuesday, the two held a closed-door meeting at the president’s official residence.

The meeting, whose details were not made public, also included Ruhakana Rugunda, the man who took over from Mbabazi as prime minister. 

It is not clear what role he was to play in the meeting, but there is speculation that President Museveni called him in as a last-ditch attempt to reach some understanding with his former friend.

In the video, President Museveni had said that the meeting would focus on “a forged (and) seditious” document that was in circulation. Other material circulating on the social media platform WhatsApp had also ticked the president’s ire, prompting him to pen an article in the newspapers, threatening to arrest whoever was behind the act.

A number of the messages touched on the sub-ethnic groups of Mbabazi and President Museveni, from the west of Uganda. The general feeling is that Mbabazi’s sacking angered members of his ethnic group, the Bakiga, forcing Museveni to try to placate them by appointing more ministers from that region than from any other part of Uganda.

Even then, observers say, Mbabazi can still stun his former boss in the sub-region, which has always solidly rallied behind the incumbent.

John-Jean Barya, a law professor at Makerere University who hails from western Uganda, said: “President Museveni is facing a challenge like he has never faced before, and this is especially true in western Uganda. The people have been ready to listen to other voices for a while, and the challenge posed by Mbabazi has made them even more willing to listen.”   

Now analysts expect it to be the mother of election showdowns, not even to be compared with the 2001 contest when Dr Kizza Besigye first challenged Museveni.

Meanwhile, the fact that the police have been in overdrive, pulling down Mbabazi’s campaign posters and detaining some of his supporters countrywide, may be a pointer to how Museveni and his group will handle the challenge.

Indeed, some of the earliest glimpses into Mbabazi’s attempt to mount a challenge against President Museveni came via police boss Gen Kale Kayihura, whose interrogations of people said to be mobilisation for Mbabazi were laid bare for Ugandans to listen to in tape recordings.

The police then went on the rampage, arresting mostly youthful individuals who they said were mobilising for a Mbabazi shot at the presidency. Many of them were dispersed with teargas, prompting Mbabazi’s wife, Jacqueline Mbabazi, to refer to Gen Kayihura as “Gen Teargas.” She accused him of doing political work instead of policing.

But according to Charles Rwomushana, a former spy who fell out with Mbabazi because he sacked him, Museveni cannot allow Mbabazi to challenge him at any level because “Mbabazi tried to rupture the party and seize it. He attempted a coup and he has to be dealt with as a coup plotter.”

“I tell you now that Mbabazi will not be on (NRM electoral commission chairman Tanga) Odoi’s ballot paper; he will also not be on (national electoral commission chairman Badru) Kiggundu’s ballot paper,” Rwomushana said.

Rwomushana did not offer any more information about what he meant. However, Mbabazi’s lawyers, who said they were acting on intelligence information that their client would be arrested soon, wrote to the authorities demanding an explanation as to why their client was on the brink of being arrested.

The arrest, however, did not take place.

But Fredrick Jjuuko a professor at Makerere University, said that it doesn’t mean that it won’t take place.

“Museveni may have seemingly genuine reasons why he may cause the arrest of Mbabazi (and) he may do so if he feels that is the only option he has left,” said Prof Jjuuko.

Joseph Tamale Mirundi, the president’s spokesperson, however, said that Mbabazi is unlikely to be arrested.

“President Museveni is a clever man,” Mr Mirundi said. “He will not arrest Mbabazi to make him popular just the same way mistakes were made and Besigye became popular.”

The feeling that Mbabazi is better placed to challenge Museveni than Dr Besigye seems to be taking root and has been popular in donor circles for years.

The founding of the platform for the grand opposition coalition, for instance, was spearheaded by civil society players, many of whom have been canvassing for support for Mbabazi for years.

They argue that Dr Besigye had his time and that now it would be better for Mbabazi, who is fresh and still has contacts within the ruling system to take a shot at the presidency. The other argument is that Museveni would probably consider handing over to Mbabazi but never to Dr Besigye.

However, Rwomushana discounts this thinking as “uninformed,” saying that the “hatred that drives the Museveni-Mbabazi rift is deep and more far-reaching than those people will ever know.”

Inside the party, threats have come through that Mbabazi could be thrown out, with the party’s new secretary general, Justine Kasule Lumumba, as reported in a story in the government-controlled New Vision, saying that Mbabazi and former vice president Prof Gilbert Bukenya risked expulsion from the party due to their association with the opposition.

NRM sole candidate

This threat seemed to begin to take shape on Thursday when State Minister for Youth Affairs Evelyne Anite, the woman who started it all, was at it again.

In February 2013, Ms Anite, then only a youth MP for northern Uganda and not famous, had tabled a petition at the ruling party MPs’ retreat calling for Museveni to be declared NRM’s sole presidential candidate for the 2016 election.

And on Thursday, Ms Anite told The EastAfrican that a group of NRM youth had asked her to forward a petition to the party leadership seeking to dismiss Mbabazi from the party.

The group argues that Mbabazi is involved in premature campaigning and has printed campaign posters with the “wrong” logo and slogan, is in “constant association” with the opposition and has been spreading hate messages on social media through his agents.

Similar views were expressed by various party members shortly after Mbabazi declared his bid. The latest initiative by Ms Anite, it would appear, is meant to concretise them and lead to action.

But what if being expelled from the party is what Mbabazi actually wants, so that he may use it to argue that the party is undemocratic and launch his bid from outside it? Is that what he implied in the quote about not being inhibited by the vehicle he will ride in to contest in the presidential polls?

Erias Lukwago, the Kampala Lord Mayor who through political machinations has been kept out of office for nearly two years now, says that the logical step for Mbabazi is to exit the ruling party and challenge Museveni from outside because he stands to suffer immense humiliation if he stays in.

It would appear that being thrown out would be a good platform for the former NRM secretary general to cite foul play, leave the party but still appear to what one of his supporters referred to pro-positive change NRM members.

That way, Prof Jjuuko says, Mbabazi would free himself from Museveni’s plots within the ruling party and be his own man as he embraces “the battle of his life.”